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Projective techniques to study consumer perception
of food
Adriana Gambaro
In recent decades, projective techniques, a group of qualitative
sensory techniques, have emerged as a useful and versatile
tool to study consumer needs, beliefs, feelings and
motivations. The importance of projective techniques lies in the
fact that they lead consumers to express themselves beyond
the rational, and allow access to underlying or deep attitudes
and emotions, revealing non-conscious or not openly accepted
motivations in their buying behavior. The word association
technique, in which the person interviewed is asked to write,
from a list of words or phrases, the first thing that comes to
mind, has been the most applied in the field of food.
Address
Facultad de Quı́mica – Universidad de la República, General Flores
2124, Montevideo 11800, Uruguay
Corresponding author:
Current Opinion in Food Science 2018, 21[1_TD$IF]:46–[2_TD$IF]50
This review comes from a themed issue on Sensory sciences and
consumer perception
Edited by Silvana Martini
For a complete overview see the Issue and the Editorial
Available online 26th May 2018
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cofs.2018.05.004
2214-7993/ã 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
A possible approach to understanding consumer percep-
tion and purchasing decisions of food products is the
application of qualitative sensory techniques [1]. It is
important to know that there is unconscious knowledge
implicit in the decision making about food, associated
with previous ideas, attitudes, self-esteem concepts and
even stereotypes. This generates the need to use tools in
order to understand the needs of the consumer and their
responses more deeply, and study their motivations [2].
Projective techniques constitute a group of qualitative
sensory techniques, which are increasingly used in
research to investigate the perception of consumers
[3,4]. This group of techniques allows a condition of free
interpretation and response to an ambiguous stimulus,
seeking to understand the motivations, feelings, beliefs,
Current Opinion in Food Science 2018, 21:46–50
attitudes and the deep reasons to select alternatives and
answers within a specific topic [3,5].
Projective techniques are defined as those that use a
poorly structured stimulus that allows participants to
project their beliefs and feelings, which may be uncon-
scious. By projecting the answers to a third person, object
or situation favors the respondent to believe that he is
attributing the information to others and that it does not
originate in himself, there being a projection in something
or someone, beyond he who gives the information [6,7].
Although the projective techniques are created and
applied in the psychological field, in 1940, they began
to be used in consumer behavior studies and market
research to understand consumer needs with respect to
the subject matter [3,8]. They provide a complementary
contribution to the quantitative information in order to
understand the reason for the perceptions, feelings and
motivations of the consumers, by seeking access to infor-
mation stored in deeper and non-conscious levels —
which can be accessed in a spontaneous and even affec-
tive way [3,9]. This allows the disclosure of inaccessible
information, which is not available when working with
conventional, direct and explicit means [10].
By applying projective techniques, we can understand
what the consumer really feels and thinks, as individuals
relax, show no inhibitions and regard the activity as a
game. Likewise, it is possible to detect emotional reac-
tions of a consumer toward a subject matter, to awaken
awareness of abandoned ideas, to favor the expression of
new and different ideas, favoring the imagination and
knowledge of beliefs, needs and motivations which the
individual has no awareness of and represses due to social
norms and taboos, and to provide consumers with forms of
non-verbal expression [11].
The importance of projective techniques lies in the fact
that they lead consumers to express themselves beyond
the rational, stimulate a more creative, liberal and meta-
phorical type of thinking, allow access to underlying or
deep attitudes and emotions, reveal non-conscious or not
openly accepted motivations in their buying behavior and
help consumers overcome resistance [12].
The first published study in which projective techniques
were applied to the investigation of consumer perception
of food was the study of Haire’s shopping list (1950). The
primary goal of the Haire study was to assess consumer
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sentiment toward an inventive controversial product:
instant coffee. Consumers were asked to describe women
using two shopping lists that differed only in the type of
coffee they included. The lists were identical in all
aspects, except that one list specified the purchase of
Nescafé instant coffee while the other indicated Maxwell
House Coffee (traditional drip ground). Respondents were
instructed to read the shopping list and attempt to char-
acterize the woman shopping for the groceries on the list,
with a brief description of the woman’s personality and
characteristic traits. Respondents viewed the Nescafé
shopper as lazy, sloppy, and an inefficient household
planner and scheduler, meanwhile the Maxwell House
Coffee shopper was viewed as a good housewife [4,13].
Classification of projective techniques
In the bibliography, projective techniques appear classi-
fied or sub-divided into five categories: association, con-
struction, completion, choice ordering and expressive
[5,6,14,15]. In the association task, respondents are
asked to indicate the first words, images or thoughts
triggered by a stimulus [3,4]. Within this category, the
most used technique has been the word association
technique, where the stimulus presented is a word or
phrase [1,4,9]. In the construction category, subjects are
asked to construct a story or image about a stimulus that is
presented. One of the approaches of this type of techni-
ques is to use images as a stimulus, in which people are
represented in ambiguous situations. The respondent
should talk about the person in the image, his attitudes,
feelings and actions. In the completion category, the
participant is asked to complete an incomplete sentence,
story, argument or conversation, which can be combined
with images. In the choice ordering task, respondents are
asked to classify or order factors associated with a product,
brand or service, explaining why certain things are more
or less important. Finally, when expressive techniques are
applied, participants have to dramatize, act, draw or paint
a specific concept or situation. The choice ordering and
expressive techniques have not yet been applied in the
food area [3,5].
Example of the association category: the word
association technique.
The word association (WA) technique is currently the
reference projective technique to know the perception
that consumers have regarding food. This technique, like
others in the category, is based on the fact that the
presentation of a stimulus automatically activates the first
thoughts in the mind. It is based on Ajzen and Fishbein’s
theory of the reasoned action, so it is assumed that the
most prominent associations or beliefs that consumers
have about the object in question are the best predictors
of consumer behavior in relation to this object [16].
The person interviewed is asked to write what comes to
mind — be it words, images or thoughts — after being
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Projective techniques Gambaro 47
presented with a stimulus, consisting of a list of words or
phrases [3,4]. For food products, it is considered that the
first associations that come to the mind of consumers are
the most relevant in the process of selection and decision
making of the purchase of food products [1].
One of its advantages is that it gives more spontaneous
results than a questionnaire or normal interview, but it has
been criticized for its disadvantages, such as the com-
plexity of data analysis and, mainly, the subjectivity of
grouping the terms used by consumers [3]. In spite of this,
it has been applied in the last decade to explore the
perception of numerous products, such as yoghurts [8],
traditional foods [9], chocolates [17], jam jars [18], ready-
to-eat salads [5], cosmetic creams [19], meats [20],
coalho cheese [21], and pizzas [11], demonstrating its
versatility.
To obtain the associations of relevant words, respondents
are presented randomly with different names of stimuli
printed on different cards, with the following instructions:
‘Please, write down the words, descriptions, associations,
thoughts or feelings that come to your mind related with
these products’. An open blank space was provided where
they could fit as many words or phrases as they required
[19]. Although the task has been traditionally executed on
paper, Viana et al. recently demonstrated the advantages
of using online surveys, with which population spanning
larger geographic areas can be reached, and lower costs
than personal surveys can be achieved [22].
The associations made by the respondents are analyzed
qualitatively. Initially, the recurrent terms are identified
and grouped into categories. The procedure is based on
the researchers’ personal interpretation of the meanings
of words and on word synonymy. The analysis is per-
formed individually by each of the members of the
research team and the generated results are later dis-
cussed in detail among the research team before defini-
tive categories and labels are finally agreed upon by
consensus. Frequencies of mention for each category
are determined by counting the number of consumers
that used similar words to describe the concepts encom-
passed within each category [9].
Another example of the association category: the
personification technique
Within the association techniques, there are those of
personality association, where the researcher seeks to
know who and how the user of the product or service
will be like [2]. Caprara et al. discovered that the use of
personality can be a good metaphor for working on the
perception of brand images [23].
Participants are asked to imagine a product as a person
with a particular personality in relation to their character
and lifestyle (e.g. sex, age, marital status, number of
Current Opinion in Food Science 2018, 21:46–50
48 Sensory sciences and consumer perception

children, types of employment, means of transport used, vocabulary with phrases of routine use among the Brazi-
physical activity, food, personality, etc.) in a short time, to lian population was constructed in a very clear way [22].
encourage responses to be quick and spontaneous. This
technique is a major contribution to discover the social As in any qualitative technique, one of the key steps in
values and emotional responses that consumers have to the analysis of the results provided by any of the projec-
the product [2]. tive techniques mentioned is content analysis, which
transforms unstructured data into a format that allows
analysis and deals with meanings, intentions, conse-
Example of the construction category: the collage
quences and data context [26]. The description of con-
technique
sumer responses is the main objective of content analysis
The collage technique can be classified as a projective
in the context of projective techniques and is usually
visual expressive technique. Participants communicate
done by grouping the responses into categories [27].
using multiple stimuli through the use of images (e.g.
clippings from magazines and/or created images) and
verbal stimuli (e.g. clipping and written text). The Application of projective techniques to study
approach does not establish rules, therefore, the tech- the perception of brands
nique is marked by a high degree of freedom, wealth, The brand of a product or a company contains not only the
participation, plurality and diversity [24]. The creation of legal aspects, but everything that the consumer confers to
a collage does not require advanced artistic skills or it through their experience with it. Emphasis is placed on
verbalization skills on the part of the participant, and the associations, the perception, the value that the con-
therefore is applicable to all ages. Even young children sumer gives to the brand, the symbols and the mental
can participate in this type of technique [25]. image that is formed of it, thus favoring a differentiation
of the product with respect to the competition. Budac and
Baltador also highlight the relationship established
Example of the completion category: the bubble
between the user and the brand, which supplies various
technique.
consumer needs, such as generating status and favoring
In the bubble technique, respondents are asked to com-
belonging to a group [28]. Fournier indicates that brands
plete the characters’ thoughts in a comic strip [3,4]. In
have meanings among themselves, and at the same time,
general, participants are presented with incomplete dia-
add meaning to the lives of consumers, as partners or
logues, with the following instruction: ‘Please complete
friends [29]. For the consumer, a product or service is
the dialogue as you see fit.’ For example, in the work
more than the addition of its attributes; it also implies an
carried out by Vidal et al. on consumers’ perception of
emotional component and a symbolic meaning that
ready-to-eat salads, an image that represented a couple in
impact on their status and self-esteem [30,31]. The
a supermarket was presented as the first stimulus, and the
images that the consumer forms of brands go beyond
dialogue guided consumers to complete it by mentioning
the real object. There is a symbolic universe for the
the positive characteristics of the salad or the attributes
consumer, from which he or she extracts its meanings,
that promote its consumption. In the second stimulus,
such as personal experiences, values, beliefs, attitudes
consumers were suggested to mention the characteristics
and aspirations; that is why we talk about a symbolic
of the product that limit its purchase. Finally, in the third
dimension of the brand [32].
stimulus, the dialogue guided the respondents to indicate
characteristics of the ready-to-eat salad that discourage its
Projective techniques allow the brand to work as a partner
purchase [5].
or friend, humanizing it or personalizing it. Throughout
history, anthropomorphism also allows us to understand
According to Viana et al., when planning a study that
the consumer’s perceptions of products and services,
involves figures or images, it is important to consider the
since this has been an alternative of communication with
quality of the images and the words used, given that they
the non-material world, where human characteristics are
play an important role in the tool. It is vital to capture the
attributed to animals, objects or natural phenomena [29].
respondents’ attention using images with good resolution,
In turn, the use of a psychological language to study the
good colors and representing relatively common consu-
consumer, where nouns and adjectives describe the
mers among the population. The characters must have
human personality in the development and maintenance
calm expressions on their faces, that is, not to smile too
of social relationships, adds elements of socialization and
much and not show anxiety, contributing to the experi-
descriptors of personality characteristics [23].
ence of filling the bubbles as in a normal shopping
situation. For the construction of phrases, complicated
terms or words that are not used or known as regional Conclusions
should not be used, as this could affect the participation of Projective techniques are seen as a fast way to assess
people of lower educational levels. Thus, an ordinary information about new products and are mainly used for

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answering ‘how’, ‘why’ and ‘what’ questions. These
techniques are not used for answering ‘how many’ ques-
tions, that is the field of the quantitative research.
Projective techniques are fundamental to consumer
research in that they provide a greater depth of understand-
ing of what people truly think and feel about a product.
While projective techniques have proven to be very
valuable and versatile, more research would be needed
regarding their validity (i.e. how well they reflect con-
sumer perception) and reliability (i.e. the repeatability of
the findings when using different consumer samples).
Conflict of interest statement
Nothing declared.
References and recommended reading
Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review,
have been highlighted as:
 of special interest
 of outstanding interest
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Projective techniques Gambaro 49
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